Not everything about the interview process is predictable, but you can bet that you’ll be asked a few behavioral questions – and probably a few behavioral questions per interview. Behavioral questions can be questions like, “what would you do if _______?”, but more likely they’re of the form, “Tell me about a challenging interaction with a coworker on _____ project.” Contrary to popular belief, you canandshould prepare for behavioral questions. Yes, I know it’s “just talking about yourself,” but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use a few tricks to nail down your answers.

Some people love testing — and with good reason. Poking around and figuring out how to break stuff can be a lot of fun. However, some people take SET/SDET roles as a way into a company, and hope to move to being a plain ol’ software developer shortly thereafter. In many cases, these people find themselves stuck and unable to make that transition.

If there are two programmers who are equally good, but one knows Java and the other knows C++, Google would hire both. Really. But, does Google prefer, on the margin, C++ over Java? Not really. Java is actually easier in some ways in that you won’t have to worry about memory management and pointers in an interview. On the other hand, you’re also unlikely to understand computer architecture as well if you don’t know C++.

You know that awkward moment when you get to the end of an interview, your interviewer asks if you have any questions, and you just... don't? Sure, you should have questions. You know that. But, for now, you just got through being grilled for 45 minutes and you really have little you want to know other than, "am I done yet?" Here are some ideas of what sorts of questions you can ask -- and what questions can actually make you look better.

In a standard technical interview process, you're do between one and three phone interviews and then come in for a full day of four to five technical interviews. Then, the company makes its decision and you're on your way (or not). Sometimes though, the company calls you back with some slightly frustrating news: they want you to do another interview, usually on the phone.

Although I have, quite literally, made a career in the technical interviewing space, I have mixed feelings on them. They offer a lot of value and most people's issues with them ("trick questions!" "no relationship to real world coding!" "in the real world you'd just look up stuff like this!") are easily refuted. However, they're far from a perfect science. On Dice.com, I discuss why technical interviews work, and why they don't. Click to read more.

Somewhere in the midst of discussions about things like “tailoring your resume to the position,” one of the best pieces of resume advice gets lost: Your resume needs to be accomplishment-oriented. Many resumes that I see do precisely the opposite.

In an ideal world, I’d respond to all the questions I get from people asking for advice. I like helping people; this is why I do what I do!

In the real, time-limited world, I can only respond to about 25% of the questions I get from people. If your goal is to get a response from me, then you’re shooting to “outperform” 75% of people. Here’s how you can maximize your odds of getting a response from me and other experts.

An article by Amanda Blum portrays Adria Richards, who has been subjected to the wrath of the internet, in a pretty damning light. Amanda describes Adria as "a bully who uses these instances to her personal gain, driving traffic to her blog." She cites two interactions with Adria which, admittedly, look pretty bad. Adria comes off as someone with a pattern of exposing falsely perceived sexism in the worst possibly way. When you dig beneath the surface, you find that Amanda's stories aren't nearly so bad as they seem. In fact, Adria comes off as, on the whole, quite reasonable -- despite the initial bully depiction.

Marissa Mayer's decision to terminate telecommuting arrangements for Yahoo! employees has ignited a frenzy of negative press. Articles cite how studies have shown that telecommuting arrangements lead to more happier and productive employees. How could Mayer have been so stupid and shortsighted? Surely, this signals the downfall of Yahoo. Interestingly, when I hear reports from people who work at Yahoo!, they're almost invariably positive about this change.

You certainly don’t have to inform your manager. Most people don’t, so you wouldn’t be doing anything unethical or even out of the ordinary. In fact, most people inform their manager only after they’ve received and accepted another offer. In some cases, there could be advantages to telling your manage

We may not like to admit it, but recruiters and resume screeners see “tiers” in candidates. When they review a resume, it’s not just about matching a Java programmer to a Java role; it’s also about questions like, “Is this candidate good enough? Is he or she likely to pass our interviews? Would he or she be a strong performer if hired?”

Most educated people in the US know that writing with good grammar, spelling, and punctuation -- particularly in professional contexts -- is obviously important. We know that we need to be mostly flawless here and, in fact, most of us are. (Of course, everyone is prone to some typos, myself included!)

For many people, it's taken as a given that we need more women in technology. Diversity is an inherently valuable thing for these people, and they don't feel the need to justify why it's good. It just is. For others (including myself, at one point), this is slightly less clear. Why all the focus on women in tech? Sure, if women were actively discriminated against, that would be unfair. But barring that, why do we put so much effort into getting more women interested in tech?

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that in my life. You only got that job because you're a girl. Sometimes it'll be more subtle -- worded in the form of a question, or possibly directed at another woman -- but the implication is the same: that women get jobs easier than men and, therefore, women are less qualified on average than their male counterparts. I've heard this ever since I was a freshman in college, and got my first job at Microsoft.

With the summer wrapping up (no! say it ain't so!), I'm starting to put together my Fall speaking schedule. And I've got a few last summer talks coming up too. Don't see your university or city here? Sign up here to be notified when I'm coming to your city.